Lula: Chinese Censorship vs. The Marketplace of Ideas
Karolina Lula, op-ed columnist
Issue date: 4/10/06 Section: Opinion
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Last week, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang attempted to justify the Internet search engine's cooperation with the Chinese government to censor Web content. Yang argued that such a measure was necessary to attract new users to the service.
Yahoo also faced criticism for supplying information to the Chinese government that facilitated the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. The information was based on Tao's use of his Yahoo mail account. Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Rep. Tom Lantos, (D-California), deeply criticized the actions of search engines like Yahoo. "These captains of industry should have been developing new technologies to bypass the sickening censorship of government and repugnant barriers to the Internet," said Lantos. "Instead, they enthusiastically volunteered for the Chinese censorship brigade."
What's worse is that a search on "Tiananmen Square" on the Chinese Web sites will result in funny pictures of laughing tourists, but nothing about tanks and squished protestors. On the American Yahoo.com, the first search result is a Wikipedia entry about the Tiananmen protests.
Though the country is not generally innovative, China struggles to keep up with its surveillance techniques. The Chinese government puts the United States' Patriot Act to shame. So far, China has its surveillance covered on all fronts: the government scans e-mail, chat sessions and blocks foreign Web pages. It has some difficulty keeping up with mobile phone messaging, but they're working on it.
Americans take their freedom of expression for granted, as the First Amendment to the constitution protects it. In the marketplace of idea,s individuals have choice. They are exposed to various ideas and thoughts and can select the best one. A limited market leads to less informed decisions. This has a direct impact on the individual, the state, the nation and the globe. There would be no social advancement.
But it is easy for people to lose sympathy for freedom of information because of the troubling times in which we live. Not too long ago in his tapes, Osama bin Laden made a reference to a book by an American author, William Blum. Bin Laden was not only reading our books, but he also out-did Oprah when he began to recommend them to us. It is easy to be worried.
Perhaps if we censored certain books, we would have been a safer nation. It is tempting to think it unsafe to make all our information available to other less-friendly nations. But such provocative thinking is nothing but a fallacy. Censorship does not make us any safer.
Even though freedom of information has its costs, when people interact and share information they contribute to progress. The more information is shared, the larger number of people that can benefit. When people brainstorm, they have more innovation and invention, which helps them develop more theories and products.
People of the U.S. and Japan move forward at a much quicker pace than in China. The freedom of information and expression are two liberties necessary for the advancement of society. China can try as hard as they want to censor the media but they sure won't be able to avoid another Tiananmen Square.
Columnist Karolina Lula is an NCAS political science and history double major.
Yahoo also faced criticism for supplying information to the Chinese government that facilitated the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. The information was based on Tao's use of his Yahoo mail account. Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Rep. Tom Lantos, (D-California), deeply criticized the actions of search engines like Yahoo. "These captains of industry should have been developing new technologies to bypass the sickening censorship of government and repugnant barriers to the Internet," said Lantos. "Instead, they enthusiastically volunteered for the Chinese censorship brigade."
What's worse is that a search on "Tiananmen Square" on the Chinese Web sites will result in funny pictures of laughing tourists, but nothing about tanks and squished protestors. On the American Yahoo.com, the first search result is a Wikipedia entry about the Tiananmen protests.
Though the country is not generally innovative, China struggles to keep up with its surveillance techniques. The Chinese government puts the United States' Patriot Act to shame. So far, China has its surveillance covered on all fronts: the government scans e-mail, chat sessions and blocks foreign Web pages. It has some difficulty keeping up with mobile phone messaging, but they're working on it.
Americans take their freedom of expression for granted, as the First Amendment to the constitution protects it. In the marketplace of idea,s individuals have choice. They are exposed to various ideas and thoughts and can select the best one. A limited market leads to less informed decisions. This has a direct impact on the individual, the state, the nation and the globe. There would be no social advancement.
But it is easy for people to lose sympathy for freedom of information because of the troubling times in which we live. Not too long ago in his tapes, Osama bin Laden made a reference to a book by an American author, William Blum. Bin Laden was not only reading our books, but he also out-did Oprah when he began to recommend them to us. It is easy to be worried.
Perhaps if we censored certain books, we would have been a safer nation. It is tempting to think it unsafe to make all our information available to other less-friendly nations. But such provocative thinking is nothing but a fallacy. Censorship does not make us any safer.
Even though freedom of information has its costs, when people interact and share information they contribute to progress. The more information is shared, the larger number of people that can benefit. When people brainstorm, they have more innovation and invention, which helps them develop more theories and products.
People of the U.S. and Japan move forward at a much quicker pace than in China. The freedom of information and expression are two liberties necessary for the advancement of society. China can try as hard as they want to censor the media but they sure won't be able to avoid another Tiananmen Square.
Columnist Karolina Lula is an NCAS political science and history double major.